Goalies
- Various animation improvements
- Improvements to covers for pucks underneath the goaltender
- Further improvements to goalie tracking when the puck is behind the net

1. Animations are NOT the problem with the goalies. It's WHEN and HOW they do them that's the problem which is a problem with the PHILOSOPHY on goaltenders in this game. If a goalie is near one of the post, he's going to favour a limb save if the puck is shot at the net, simply because he SHOULD be aware that he's leaving part of the net open. That's goalie 101. He's never gonna hug the post and then go down in a blocking butterfly save if the shot goes to the top of the other corner.

2. It took them what? 5 years? More? To fix the problem with the legacy puck covers goalies have been complaining about all these years. And now this problem, which admittedly, was a pain in the ❤️❤️❤️❤️ when it happened, but it wasn't that critical and they fix it? Well, I guess we shouldn't complain... At least they fixed it (hopefully).

3. Again, not a very big problem. At least, to me, it wasn't the goalie's tracking of the puck while it's behind the net that was the problem but how he reacts when the player comes out from the back of the net, which most of the times turns out to be an exploit goal; come out from behind the net skating backwards, twitch backhand, quickly turn forehand and snipe it in. It kills me everytime I see one of these online streamers or youtubers abuse the AI goalies this way because they have no clue how to play legitimate hockey to score their goals so they resort to the poor goalie engine exploits. Or better yet, let goalies use sprawling saves on wraparound attempts again like in NHL 14/15.

To me the main problems with the human goalies in EA's NHL series are:

#1 (with a bullet) - Save Logic. Goalies need to be more aware of where they are and what type of save they need to favor in those situations. Goalies need to be favoring their sticks to make easy saves and deflect them to the corners. Don't mind the people crying that the puck ends up in the corners too much or over the glass. That's hockey. Deal with it. Goalies MAKE SAVES, they don't "allow goals"...

#2 - Goalie builds. Standup goalies don't exist. Pure "butterfly" goalies don't exist. Also, different builds need to have access to different saves. A standup goalie shouldn't be doing that many butterfly save animations. Builds should have a size/weight ratio that puts restrictions on things like speed and effective save range. Bigger goalies should have their range and speed reduced the bigger and heavier they are, but they should have greater control in the crease. While the contrary should be true of smaller goalies who SHOULD have greater save range while being much more mobile, but more erratic when it comes to control. Goalies need to cater to a player's style, not what's broken and exploitable in the game. Tired of seeing 6'7" 180 Lbs goalies that camp the middle and get away with robbery. Picking a build should be about suiting your style of play, not abusing the game's (poor) mechanics.

#3 - Disparity in physics. Why do goalies have almost NO physics when "skating" (and I use that term very loosely when it comes to how goalies move) and then when they go into a save, the physics engine kicks it into overdrive? It's such a huge, jarring disparity when you can glide around without a care around the crease, but the moment you hit that SAVE button/trigger... Holy crap! And then once you're down on the ice, making small, precise movements is almost impossible because the physics engine just throws you left and right in huge pushes when all you want to do is try to follow the puck and stay in front of it.

Goalies
- Various animation improvements
- Improvements to covers for pucks underneath the goaltender
- Further improvements to goalie tracking when the puck is behind the net

1. Animations are NOT the problem with the goalies. It's WHEN and HOW they do them that's the problem which is a problem with the PHILOSOPHY on goaltenders in this game. If a goalie is near one of the post, he's going to favour a limb save if the puck is shot at the net, simply because he SHOULD be aware that he's leaving part of the net open. That's goalie 101. He's never gonna hug the post and then go down in a blocking butterfly save if the shot goes to the top of the other corner.

2. It took them what? 5 years? More? To fix the problem with the legacy puck covers goalies have been complaining about all these years. And now this problem, which admittedly, was a pain in the ❤️❤️❤️❤️ when it happened, but it wasn't that critical and they fix it? Well, I guess we shouldn't complain... At least they fixed it (hopefully).

3. Again, not a very big problem. At least, to me, it wasn't the goalie's tracking of the puck while it's behind the net that was the problem but how he reacts when the player comes out from the back of the net, which most of the times turns out to be an exploit goal; come out from behind the net skating backwards, twitch backhand, quickly turn forehand and snipe it in. It kills me everytime I see one of these online streamers or youtubers abuse the AI goalies this way because they have no clue how to play legitimate hockey to score their goals so they resort to the poor goalie engine exploits. Or better yet, let goalies use sprawling saves on wraparound attempts again like in NHL 14/15.

To me the main problems with the human goalies in EA's NHL series are:

#1 (with a bullet) - Save Logic. Goalies need to be more aware of where they are and what type of save they need to favor in those situations. Goalies need to be favoring their sticks to make easy saves and deflect them to the corners. Don't mind the people crying that the puck ends up in the corners too much or over the glass. That's hockey. Deal with it. Goalies MAKE SAVES, they don't "allow goals"...

#2 - Goalie builds. Standup goalies don't exist. Pure "butterfly" goalies don't exist. Also, different builds need to have access to different saves. A standup goalie shouldn't be doing that many butterfly save animations. Builds should have a size/weight ratio that puts restrictions on things like speed and effective save range. Bigger goalies should have their range and speed reduced the bigger and heavier they are, but they should have greater control in the crease. While the contrary should be true of smaller goalies who SHOULD have greater save range while being much more mobile, but more erratic when it comes to control. Goalies need to cater to a player's style, not what's broken and exploitable in the game. Tired of seeing 6'7" 180 Lbs goalies that camp the middle and get away with robbery. Picking a build should be about suiting your style of play, not abusing the game's (poor) mechanics.

#3 - Disparity in physics. Why do goalies have almost NO physics when "skating" (and I use that term very loosely when it comes to how goalies move) and then when they go into a save, the physics engine kicks it into overdrive? It's such a huge, jarring disparity when you can glide around without a care around the crease, but the moment you hit that SAVE button/trigger... Holy crap! And then once you're down on the ice, making small, precise movements is almost impossible because the physics engine just throws you left and right in huge pushes when all you want to do is try to follow the puck and stay in front of it.

Goalies also need separate limb movement. So many goals on the ice along the post because the robot butterfly goalie animation costs the goal when in real life the goalie would extend that pad out farther like to the post to make the stop. Separate limb movement might help a great deal when it comes to stopping breakaways/penalty shots instead of doing the diving poke like 80% of the time

EASHL Scoreboard. Please, please fix. There is no small option, the classic top-left clock is available in other modes, PLEASE fix this. Using the huge full-width scoreboard is not an option for goalies or defensemen.

Please, I'm begging you. Just restore the option to switch and everyone can be happy.

EASHL: When you have a strobe effect selected for both goalie and skater. It defaults to the white/blue light for both goalie and skater. Not the effect selected in the Club Customization menu. None of the light effects or colors work. Have tested multiple configurations.

Hi EA Sports. Something went wrong with yesterday's patch (Oct. 25). In EASHL mode (on BROADCAST CAMERA), during a game, netting above the end glass is flickering. It really annoys and distracts me, plus it shades a little the play in end zones. The netting shouldn't be visible during the game, as it was before the patch. I'm putting a video below to show you how it looks like. I hope you will fix it very soon. Thanks.

"Interceptions from behind
- Rare as it should be. Abusing stick lift isn't an issue as it causes penalties.
Puck loss when pivoting at high speed
- If anything this doesn't happen enough. Also nobody every slips and falls like happens once or twice an nhl game"

I'm baffled these are the issues. They're minor. Major simulation issues are poke check being underpowered and causing too many penalties and board play (consistently 2 defenders on 1 offensive player instead of 2 and 2). Lesser issues are a lack of goals from screening, tip-ins, and passes going in off players bodies/skates. Etc.

Us defensemen used to have tools. NHL 13 I think was very defensive centric. Biggest benefit was allowing for shoving people out of the slot so you wouldn't have forwards just sitting there waiting for a pass, people had to skate around and make plays happen with good puck movement. Goalies were also on point with saves.

But people complained. Games typically were only 1-4 goal games (combined) and all the arcade style players whined and complained until most of that was nerfed so they (the arcaders) could do their dumb gameplay again and I believe in 14 the ability to clear out the slot was removed in favour of the net battle crap we have now.

Having a proper means to remove standing players in the slot would be a godsend to have reimplemented. It would remove the current usual tactic of just rushing the net hoping for a dirty goal as the standard scoring tactic.

Us defensemen used to have tools. NHL 13 I think was very defensive centric. Biggest benefit was allowing for shoving people out of the slot so you wouldn't have forwards just sitting there waiting for a pass, people had to skate around and make plays happen with good puck movement. Goalies were also on point with saves.

But people complained. Games typically were only 1-4 goal games (combined) and all the arcade style players whined and complained until most of that was nerfed so they (the arcaders) could do their dumb gameplay again and I believe in 14 the ability to clear out the slot was removed in favour of the net battle crap we have now.

Having a proper means to remove standing players in the slot would be a godsend to have reimplemented. It would remove the current usual tactic of just rushing the net hoping for a dirty goal as the standard scoring tactic.

[Socair - edited for Profanity]

I’m sorry but you want 1-4 goals combined?

No. Just no. This isn’t soccer.

That's funny because in EA's soccer game scoring upwards of 3 goals per side is not uncommon. Also, somewhere in between 1-4 goals per game is pretty much the average in the NHL right now. Anything higher and it turns into a Basketball game...

Us defensemen used to have tools. NHL 13 I think was very defensive centric. Biggest benefit was allowing for shoving people out of the slot so you wouldn't have forwards just sitting there waiting for a pass, people had to skate around and make plays happen with good puck movement. Goalies were also on point with saves.

But people complained. Games typically were only 1-4 goal games (combined) and all the arcade style players whined and complained until most of that was nerfed so they (the arcaders) could do their dumb gameplay again and I believe in 14 the ability to clear out the slot was removed in favour of the net battle crap we have now.

Having a proper means to remove standing players in the slot would be a godsend to have reimplemented. It would remove the current usual tactic of just rushing the net hoping for a dirty goal as the standard scoring tactic.

[Socair - edited for Profanity]

I’m sorry but you want 1-4 goals combined?

No. Just no. This isn’t soccer.

That's funny because in EA's soccer game scoring upwards of 3 goals per side is not uncommon. Also, somewhere in between 1-4 goals per game is pretty much the average in the NHL right now. Anything higher and it turns into a Basketball game...

Combined? I’m pretty much next to positive that NHL league average scoring has never been lower than 5 goals per game during any point in the league’s history.

In any case in a video game you want a tad - just a TAD before you jump one me - more (opportunity for) offense. Something between 6.5 to 7ish - or pre dead puck era/early 90s hockey.

Us defensemen used to have tools. NHL 13 I think was very defensive centric. Biggest benefit was allowing for shoving people out of the slot so you wouldn't have forwards just sitting there waiting for a pass, people had to skate around and make plays happen with good puck movement. Goalies were also on point with saves.

But people complained. Games typically were only 1-4 goal games (combined) and all the arcade style players whined and complained until most of that was nerfed so they (the arcaders) could do their dumb gameplay again and I believe in 14 the ability to clear out the slot was removed in favour of the net battle crap we have now.

Having a proper means to remove standing players in the slot would be a godsend to have reimplemented. It would remove the current usual tactic of just rushing the net hoping for a dirty goal as the standard scoring tactic.

[Socair - edited for Profanity]

I’m sorry but you want 1-4 goals combined?

No. Just no. This isn’t soccer.

That's funny because in EA's soccer game scoring upwards of 3 goals per side is not uncommon. Also, somewhere in between 1-4 goals per game is pretty much the average in the NHL right now. Anything higher and it turns into a Basketball game...

Combined? I’m pretty much next to positive that NHL league average scoring has never been lower than 5 goals per game during any point in the league’s history.

In any case in a video game you want a tad - just a TAD before you jump one me - more (opportunity for) offense. Something between 6.5 to 7ish - or pre dead puck era/early 90s hockey.

Yeah, well a "tad" usually means something like 10-15% more, which I'd be ok with. And many others would as well. But when human goalies GAA is averaging closer to 4.00 than 2.00 which, I don't have to tell you, is closer to 50%, you don't need to be a genius to figure out where the problem lies.

I mean, go to LG and check out the game scores on any given night. Winning goalies mostly end up with an .800 SV% which is not even close to what you'd see from a losing goalie. The rare times you see a goalie with close to .900 SV% is when his team allows around 10 shots or less. Let's not even talk about losing goalies who see sometimes upwards of 20 shots per game and give up 6+ goals per game...

The Solution? Make goalies better so that open shots that the goalies can see will be saved most of the time (over 95%). Put in a system where the more you hold on to the puck without cycling it the lower your attributes go. One-timer accuracy needs to be tweaked so that really well set up plays are rewarded more often, while rushed plays yield lower results. Lower down puck possession quickness, especially when the puck is bouncing.